I am volunteering at a college fair for a UC campus. I’m brushing up on UC requirements and have a question about grade validation for English. If a student gets a D or F in a semester of English (earlier in his or her academic career) but passes AP English AND passes the exam with a “3” or better, does the exam validate the semester of English? Is the D or F still in the GPA calculation?
Validation of course work (missing or D/F grade) with higher level courses only applies to language other than English and some math courses. See https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/csu-uc-a-g-comparison-matrix.pdf (top of second page). So the D or F grade in an English course cannot be validated by completing a higher level course.
However, a score of 3 on AP English (either) counts as fulfilling the English (b) requirement out of the UC a-g requirements, according to https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/subject-requirement-a-g.html . Note that may other (but not all) a-g subject requirements can be partially or completely fulfilled by test scores.
A grade of D or F in a course listed in the a-g listings for the high school still counts toward HS GPA calculation if the course was taken after 9th grade and before 12th grade.